Monday, January 23, 2012

Staunton,
January 23 – Komi-Permyak activists are using the Internet to highlight the
worsening situation in their region since it became the first small non-Russian
federation subject to be combined with a larger and predominantly ethnic
Russian one and to demand that Moscow restore their former status or allow them
to become part of the ethnically-related Komi Republic.

A group
of Komi-Permyaks, who feel that they were mistled or even betrayed when
Vladimir Putin orchestrated a referendum approving the elimination of their
autonomy and status as a federal subject and inclusion in Perm kray in 2005, have
launched a “Return Our Autonomy” page on Russia’s V kontakte” network (vkontakte.ru/topic-33845494_25626832)

Those
posting on this page say that their people have experienced a significant “deterioration
in the standard of living” since they were “swallowed by Perm kray and argue
that the only way forward for their Finno-Ugric nation is to leave that
formation and either be restored as a separate federal subject of become part
of the Komi Republic.

The
Soviet government formed the Komi-Permyak autonomous district in 1925, and
after the USSR disintegrated, it became one of the federation subjects
enumerated in the Russian Constitution. But in the name of administrative simplification,
then President Vladimir Putin pushed through its amalgamation with Perm on
December 1, 2005.

The
Komi-Permyaks and activists in several other Finno-Ugric nations in the Middle
Volga have complained since that time that the assistance they were promised
and the benefits they were told would flow from amalgamation have not happened
and that the Komi-Permyaks are worse off than before.

But this
is the first time that local activists have formed what could be described as a
nascent movement to reverse the amalgamation, and it comes as things appear to
be heating up among the population of the Finno-Ugric and ethnic Russian
subjects in this part of the Russian Federation.

Last
week, Aleksandr Kalashniko, the head of the FSB administration in the Komi
Republic, told the local paper, “Krasnoye znamya” that the most important task
his officers now have is “blocking extremism and its most serious form,
terrorism” among both Finno-Ugric and Russian populations (www.gumilev-center.ru/?p=9058).

In
addition to nationalists groups, Kalashnikov complained about the work of Golos
and Memorial, two human rights groups that he said were “directed from abroad,
often financed by foreign non-governmental foundations, and directed at the
transformation of the political system in Russia,” including by the disruption
of the upcoming presidential elections.